Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to contribute to the debate on Bill C-474. This proposed legislation focuses on Canadian extractive companies, Canadian mining companies in other words, that are operating internationally. Its main objective, which I do not think anyone could object to, is the improvement of financial transparency, accountability and economic sustainability through public reporting of any payment that Canadian mining companies or Canadian oil and gas companies make to foreign governments.
This is important because Canada is the world's largest investor in extractive industries, at least if we leave oil and hydrocarbons aside. We have investments in roughly 8,000 properties and around 100 countries around the world. Nearly 20% of Canada's foreign investments are in the extractive sector and 60% of the world's publicly listed mining corporations are listed on Canadian stock exchanges.
My own interest in this issue comes from the fact that I am the chair of the human rights subcommittee of the foreign affairs committee. We have done some work into human rights issues that relates to mineral extraction. In some cases, this involves mineral extraction, where Canadian companies either are involved, or potentially could be involved in the future. My colleague, the member for Mount Royal, mentioned the example of looking into the Bisha mine site in Eritrea which is operated by a Canadian company. There are other examples as well.
This is important because it is not always easy for Canada to have an influence on international human rights issues. We are not as influential in the hard power way as some of the other countries in the world: the United States, Britain, France and China. However, when it comes to the power of our investments in the international extractive sector, we are the most significant player.
Having said all of that, there are certain human rights issues that strike me as being particularly important. They have to be taken into account when one is dealing with these kinds of investments. For example, there is the issue of property rights and the land tenure of people who live on the land on which a potential mine might be placed. This can happen even in my own riding. Here in Canada we have had mineral exploration on property where the individuals who have lived for their entire lives do not have the underground rights to their own property and this creates conflict. However, in Canada we have expropriation acts; we have the rule of law. This is not true everywhere. Canadians investing in countries that do not have these rules have to find a way of dealing with the fact that these countries often do not have a proper mechanism for dealing with this kind of thing. In some cases, this includes issues that relate to indigenous rights in those countries. We have an obligation to deal with that.
We have to deal with the fact that in some countries the population is not truly free. There is the danger that we could find ourselves operating in a professional manner, but in an area where the population is enserfed, where there is forced labour. We could find ourselves, if we are not careful, complicit in some kind of human rights abuse. This is of course a major concern to this government, and to any responsible Canadian.
There are these considerations, and some others that are not truly human rights issues, but clearly they are human rights in the broader sense. The destruction of the environment, which can happen from mining, is a real worry. For example, one great tragedy that has occurred, which we could say is a human rights issue, has been the pollution of rivers with arsenic as a result of the gold mining industry. It is for this reason that the world community—and Canada has been a key participant in this—has adopted rules and practices relating to the use and monitoring of arsenic in mineral extraction to make sure this kind of harm does not occur. It can have disastrous implications. These are, in the broad sense, of course, human rights implications.
One issue to be concerned about is how we deal with foreign bribery, kickbacks and so on. The intent of Bill C-474 is to deal with illicit payments to officials in foreign jurisdictions in order to get access to resources or for favouritism.
The way that Bill C-474 aims to do this is by requiring Canadian extractive companies and their subsidiaries that are incorporated under Canadian or provincial law to submit to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Natural Resources an independently audited annual transparency report. This is all quite reasonable, but there are some problems that need to be addressed with regard to this bill.
First of all, Bill C-474 pre-empts the work currently under way involving Canada's international partners in the G8 in preparation for the G8 leaders summit, which is occurring this summer. The issue of transparency in the world's extractive industries is expected to be a key item at the G8 summit.
Second, Bill C-474 also pre-empts the collaborative work currently under way involving industry representatives and NGOs, work that is scheduled to be completed this summer as well. The revenue transparency working group is putting together a framework for mandatory reporting of payments that will ensure that we are in line with our international partners' regimes to ensure, again, that we have strong transparency that does not burden Canadian businesses disproportionately, as compared to our trading partners and competitors, with unnecessary red tape.
Third, there are many international or multilateral initiatives that already exist. For example, there is the extractive industries transparency index, which the government supports. In fact, just last October, Prime Minister Harper announced $20 million over a four-year period in support—